Films From...

With the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this year, Britain is in the world spotlight. What better time to look back on the best in cinema our nation’s produced over the decades of the monarch’s reign? We’ve picked a gem per year for all 60 years. Spoilt for choice, we’ve had to leave out some wonderful faves.

One film per decade also has a teaching resource attached, spotlighting the sheer diversity of talent and richness of our recent movie history – from famed director David Lean’s Hobson’s Choice, a classic comedy set in Victorian-era Manchester, to Ken Loach’s social-realist drama Kes, about a lonely boy who befriends a kestrel hawk, and Wallace & Gromit – The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, a much-loved animation from Bristol’s Aardman studios. Horace Ove’s gripping portrait of '70s London Pressure, that kick-started black British cinema, is a focus, as is the Glasgow-set Ratcatcher, the lyrical first film of acclaimed Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay. And let’s not forget the Queen herself, who's enlisted for help by the young girl in The BFG, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic story.

If you want to set up a British Connection season as part of your film club, then download our resource now for ideas about what to talk about in post-screening discussions. We've also made a stunning timeline so that you can place the films in context. Take a look at our preview below, and download the complete timeline here.

Want to browse the films by decade? Here's the list online...

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Many consider Belfast-born Brian Desmond Hurst to be Northern Ireland’s greatest film director. A bold filmmaker for his time, he had a fascinating career defined by a stint in Hollywood working with the great American director John Ford and his 1934 film Irish Hearts, which was Northern Ireland’s first sound film. It’s his 1951 film Scrooge, however for which he is best remembered. It’s still regarded as the definitive adaptation of the Dickens story, A Christmas Carol.

Another Northern Irish classic is Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947). A Belfast set film noir, it follows a wounded man on the run after a failed bank heist. Exploring people’s reactions to the unknown bleeding man it cleverly broaches the country’s political issues. In fact, the film is considered the first to depict the beginnings of the country’s ‘Troubles’ – a period of political and violent conflict rising from historic tensions between those who do and do not support the union with Britain, which gripped Northern Ireland throughout the 1960s into the late 90s.

Unsurprisingly this period of unrest influenced many filmmakers - the most powerful results being tense drama In The Name Of The Father (1993), terrifying docudrama Bloody Sunday (2002) and the electrifying Hunger (2008). All set in NI during the troubles, each painfully depicts the devastation caused by terrorism. Evident in their critical portrayal of police officers and the British army, the common thread is their scrutiny of the British government's management of the conflict and exploration of the beliefs of those steering the violence.

While these films offer a tough depiction of the troubles, there are also films that tackle it in a more light-hearted way. Full of comedy, Mickybo & Me (2004) is a tale of friendship between two boys from different sides of the conflict. Bonding over Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) they run riot across a divided 1970s Belfast.

Moving beyond the troubles, Northern Irish filmmakers have also made films set in other places, like Terry George’s Oscar-nominated Rwandan civil war drama Hotel Rwanda (2004). Perhaps it’s no surprise that Northern Irish film is particularly good at telling stories of conflict, but as Hotel Rwanda proves this is done in bold and original ways.

For a lighter look at life, there's Mad About Mambo (2000), which stars Northern Irish actor Maclean Stewart as a football-mad teen who takes dancing lessons to help him emulate the fancy footwork of his South American soccer heroes.

Or you could try a film about the joy of filmmaking - The First Movie (2010), directed by FILMCLUB's Ambassador for Northern Ireland, Belfast-born Mark Cousins. It explores the capacity of film to broaden imaginations, by introducing the young people of a crisis-hit Kurdish village to cinema for the first time.

And finally, if you want to head back into the history of Northern Ireland, Edwardian filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon are on hand to send you straight back to the turn of the 20th century. Mitchell and Kenyon In Ireland (1906) brings Belfast vividly to life, with street scenes which show how rich and poor alike lived in the great city over 100 years ago.

Bombs, the rattle of gunfire and the rubble-strewn streets of Baghdad city. With the Iran/Iraq War in the 1980s, the Gulf War in the 1990s and the American invasion in 2003 bringing an end to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, our impression of Iraq has been influenced by constant news images of a war-torn country.

But other images do exist. Set in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam, Son of Babylon (12) gives a personal, rather than violent, account of the affect of war. Directed by Iraqi-born Mohamed Al Daradji it focuses on Ahmed and his grandmother as they search for his father, a missing soldier. As they travel across the country the film expresses the fears shared by many Iraqi families and provides a truer portrait of Iraq than that painted by news reports.

Similarly, Turtles Can Fly (15) and Half Moon (PG) – although made by an Iranian filmmaker - give an intimate Iraqi point of view. In fact, in a defiant act against the disruption war causes Turtles Can Fly (15) was the first film to be shot in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Set in a refugee camp on the Turkey/Iraq border it follows the lives of orphaned Iraqi children. Half Moon (PG) shows Iraqi-born musician Malmo on his return to Iraq having lived in Iran for thirty years - echoing the feelings of many Iraqi people returning to their country in the aftermath of Saddam’s fall.

Documentaries have also helped Iraq move away from the images of war. Interestingly, a lot of these films are made by non-Iraqis determined to show another side to the country. The First Movie (PG) follows Northern Irish filmmaker Mark Cousins on a visit to Iraqi village Goptapa. After showing the children their first ever film – they’ve never seen a full-length film before, let alone been to the cinema! - he gives them cameras to go and make their own. The beautiful conclusion is that despite war-torn lives, they have the same powerful imaginations of children all over the world.

Filmed over three years after the fall of Saddam, American documentary Iraq in Fragments (PG) examines the everyday lives of Iraqis across the country. Heavy Metal in Baghdad (15) meanwhile, is a quirky American documentary about Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda and their struggle to keep playing in spite of the unrest.

Now, as the country becomes more settled we can only hope this will encourage more Iraqi filmmakers to film in their country, about their rich culture and not just issues related to war. 

With the 5th London Russian Film Festival launching this Friday, what a great excuse to highlight the Russian gems in the FILMCLUB catalogue.

Going as far back as 1913, Mad Love is a collection of three black-and-white silent films directed by Yevgeni Bauer. One of the first Russian directors to experiment with film techniques such as editing and framing, Bauer created a beautiful and dramatic style that had a huge influence on 20th Century Russian filmmaking.

The next important figure of early Russian cinema was Sergei Eisenstein. His film Battleship Potemkin (1925) – a fictional account of the 1917 Russian revolution – was visually groundbreaking and celebrated as the best propaganda film of all time, using cinema to create sympathy for political beliefs. The legendary Odessa stairs scene showing the massacre of civilians by Russian soldiers demonstrated Eisenstein’s innovative editing techniques. With its message of sailors rebelling against their leader and the cruel military Battleship Potemkin confirmed Eisenstein as a director who sympathised with the Soviet government that ruled over Russia from 1922 – 1991 and its’ idea that there should be no classes in society.

His later films such as Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan The Terrible I (1944), biopics of Russian folk heroes, were also hugely popular due to his unique way of creating powerful dramas and their upholding of Soviet beliefs.

In the Russia of this time great innovators were experimenting with cinema, intent on finding out what this new art could do. Documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera (1929) cuts together moments of day-to-day life with shots of the film itself being filmed and edited. Accompanied by an exciting soundtrack, the film is an extraordinary early experiment in how film can capture reality.

In the '50s and '60s, Soviet Russian filmmaking was still going strong with popular films such as World War II action The Cranes Are Flying (1957) and Russian fairytale Jack Frost (1964) symbolising Soviet attitudes, while during the ‘70s the now-legendary director Andrei Tarkovsky made, among other masterpieces, mystical sci-fis Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979).

These days, Russian cinema is continuing its success across the world, with 1994 drama Burnt By The Sun and the 2006 animation of a timeless Russian children’s story Peter and The Wolf both having won Oscars. Fantasy horror Night Watch (2004) literally exploded across Russian cinemas and last year’s psychological drama How I Ended This Summer (2010) won several film festival awards including Best Film at the 2010 London Film Festival.

With all this recent success and history of innovation we can’t wait to see what the 2011 London Russian Film Festival has in store for us.

Maybe Cardiff isn’t exactly Hollywood or Bollywood, but these days you can see Welsh stories filmed in Wales by Welsh people (and sometimes in Welsh). Films like the extraordinary documentary Sleep Furiously (2008), or the historical drama Solomon and Gaenor or the animated version of what might be the most famous piece of writing about the country, Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood.

But it wasn’t always like that. Another great piece of Welsh literature, How Green Was My Valley, was filmed in 1941 by the legendary American director John Ford. Because of World War II, Ford had to cancel his plan to film on location, and the countryside and tough mining town were recreated just outside of Los Angeles. There was only one Welsh person in the cast.

You can see how much of a shame that is when you contrast that film with 1959’s Tiger Bay. Its main stars aren’t Welsh either, but this moving and exciting drama about a young girl who witnesses a murder was filmed around Cardiff’s docks and you can learn a lot about how the city was then by watching what’s happening in the background.

If there’s one central theme that comes up in more recent films set in Wales, it's the relationship between locals and people seen to be outsiders. So in the comedy The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain, the locals conspire to defeat the civil servants who want to downgrade their local landmark. Solomon in the powerful period drama Solomon and Gaenor tries to conceal the fact that he’s Jewish and so different from everyone else in a small mining town. In A Way Of Life, directed by the English filmmaker Amma Asante, a deprived Cardiff community reacts to the murder of an Asian resident.

What all these explore in very different ways is the balance between the many positive things that come with a strong sense of togetherness and belonging and the idea that anyone who doesn’t obviously fit in could be seen as a threat. Perhaps the most touching portrait of a Welsh community in recent years comes from a director who is sort of an outsider and sort of not. Gideon Koppel’s documentary Sleep Furiously is about the village of Trefeurig. Koppel grew up there, but unlike most other local families, his hasn’t been there for generations. His parents were German Jewish refugees. Maybe it’s this unique position that lets Koppel show what’s special about this little corner of North Wales.

And just as Sleep Furiously shows how amazing the Welsh countryside can look film, so this year’s teen comedy Submarine, based on the novel by Welsh author Joe Dunthorne, makes Swansea and Barry look strange and exciting. It’s all a long way from trying to conjure up Wales under the hot California sun…

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